Point of View \ TGT GTX 680 Beast has arrived and we can finally confirm it is the fastest factory overclocked GTX 680 card. GPU performance is at the next level thanks to the company's overclock, which boosted the GPU clock from reference 1006MHz to 1162MHz.

The memory was left intact, i.e. it runs at 1502MHz (6008MHz effectively). Many users look for overclocked graphics cards for the sole reason of not having to mess with it yourself, which is why we'd rather have seen Point of View \ TGT overclock the memory. Although we didn't do it yet, we're certain that overclocking the memory on Point of View \ TGT's GTX 680 Beast will go as smoothly as on the rest of the GTX 680 pack. Just like the reference card, the GTX 680 Beast comes with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

As we suspected, TGT opted on the cooler we've seen on GTX 680 Ultra Charged cards. The cooler has three fans and not only does it keep the GPU cooler, it's quieter than the reference solution as well. The only potential downside of it would be the fact it takes up three slots. The central fan is a 9cm one while the other two are 8cm.

The heatsink has five heatpipes – tree go towards the end and two towards the I/O panel.

GPU temperatures didn't exceed 71 degrees Celsius in Crysis 2, which is an excellent score considering the fans remained almost inaudible, even in long gaming sessions. The cooler did an excellent job despite the incredibly hot weather in Austria as of late.

The card is powered via one 8-pin and one 6-pin power connectors (the reference PCB uses two 6-pin power connectors). Consumption is some 25W higher than on the reference GTX 680. Point of View / TGT used five phase PWM design, one phase more than on the reference card.

The GTX 680 Beast comes with a rich selection of video outs an can run up to four displays simultaneously. Users get two dual-link DVI outs, one standard HDMI and one DisplayPort.

First impressions are excellent - gaming at 2560x1600 is a joy. However, it's the cooler that took the main stage, as it's really quiet and performs great. Point of View \ TGT GTX 680 Beast is not listed yet, but should be priced similarly to GTX 680 TGT Beast Watercooled Edition, which goes for about 560 euro.

Cooler Master is no stranger to the market and is often the company that introduces a radically new design and gets away with it. However, the product we have today is HAF XM, a new case from Cooler Master’s HAF series that isn’t radically new, but has been highly anticipated.

While the company’s HAF X cases are a dream come true for enthusiasts who yearn for maximum room within the case, others found it too large. However, its meticulously designed and implemented cooling was definitely a sought for feature for all, which is why Cooler Master took its magic wand and turned HAF X into HAF XM. Not quite the pumpkin tale you usually hear, but it’ll do.

HAF XM is smaller than HAF X, but it still packs enough room for largest CPU coolers, water cooling, high end graphics and E-ATX motherboards. Thankfully, the company stuck to the idea of making the cooling stick out for all the good reasons.

Below you’ll find a picture showing that HAF XM really belongs to the HAF family – we’d recognize it in the dark.

The new detail we haven’t seen on HAF cases before is the latch on the left side panel. This means that the left panel has been rotated by 90°, which makes accessing components easier.

HAF XM is available with a window too instead of the mesh grill on our test version.

The I/O panel features two USB 3.0 connectors (internal ones), two USB 2.0 connectors, audio-in and audio-out (HD audio is supported). Left to the power key is the LED switch; reset is to the right. You’ll find a small open compartment behind them, which can be used to hold USB sticks and such.

The two bottom 5.25 slots were reworked as hot-swap units, which Cooler Master calls X-docks. The picture below shows the drive connectors. Both X-docks will take 3.5’’ or 2.5’’ drives.

Although this is a mid-tower case, Cooler Master resorted to quality design in order to gain space. CPU height is limited to 19.6cm (7.7 inches) while graphics card limit stands at 35.4cm (13.9 inches) or 46.3cm (if user removes an internal HDD cage).

The case will take motherboards up to E-ATX and we see that there’s plenty of room for hard drives as well. In fact, HAF XM comes with nine HDD/SSD bays, or eight 3.5’’ bays (6 internal and two in X-dock), or nine 2.5’’ bays. A dedicated 2.5’’ bay is behind the motherboard tray, which is an interesting detail.

The motherboard tray has a CPU backplate cutout, which will make replacing CPU coolers easier.

The rear panel holds 8+1 expansion slots.

HAF XM comes with two 200mm fans (one on the top and one on the front panel) and a single 140mm fan. This should provide adequate cooling but we’ll reserve our judgment until the final review. The case should be priced at about €100 before VAT. Stay tuned as we'll have the full review up soon.

Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction against Samsung’s products was denied on Friday. This means that Galaxy S 4G, Infuse 4G, Droid Charge and Galaxy Tab 10.1 will not be pulled from retail in the US and, most likely, that legal battles will be Apple’s main business for years to come.

California district judge Lucy Koh said that Apple could not prove that it would be “irreparably harmed” by sales of Samsung’s devices. Koh wrote:"Indeed, given the evidence Samsung presented, it seems likely that a major beneficiary of an injunction would be other smartphone manufacturers."

It was concluded that Apple’s design complaints, including device size, screen size and speaker position, do not hold water. Thus, Apple cannot be the only one that launches such devices. The company is yet to comment on the ruling.

Samsung’s spokesperson, on the other hand, welcomed the ruling and said it confirms that Apple’s arguments are void. More importantly, the company says that it has “raised substantial questions about the validity of Apple design patents.”

The case continues on July 30, 2012, but we’re sure we’ll hear much more by then.

Nvidia launched its Fermi based dual-GPU GTX 590 on March 24 and we’ve received Gainward’s Geforce GTX 590 3072MB GDDR5. The card is based on reference design which means that it’s pretty much identical to most other GTX 590 cards, except for the sticker of course.

GTX 590 is a beast with more than 6 billion transistors, thanks to two GF110 GPUs. Each GPU comes with 512 CUDA processors. Basically, it means that the card has eight GPC (Graphics Computing Clusters), 128 texture units, 32 streaming multiprocessors and 96 ROP units. Each GPU has 1.5GB of memory and 384-bit bus connection.

Gainward’s card looks pretty nice and one wouldn’t think that it’s a dual-GPU card by just looking at it from the front. The blower fan used earlier was replaced by the central style fan design. The fan isn’t too loud, although you’ll hear it well, but the most important thing is that the thermals are kept in check.

Gainward GTX 590 allows you to indulge in some Nvidia Surround without having to buy another Geforce card. All Fermi cards, except of course GTX 590, allow for only two Displays at the time. Nvidia opted for three dual-link DVIs and one DisplayPort out on GTX 590.

You can find some preliminary GTX 590 results below, and it confirms that GTX 590 and HD 6990 have locked horns fighting for dominance. Judging by these, it looks like the crown of the fastest card may very well be decided by drivers.